The Letter
by Aki and Tenshi
Summary: Her only wish is that she had known before he died, that way she wouldn't feel so guilty...Rory deals with the loss of a longlost friend. warning: character death and a touch of Literati.
1. Chapter 1

**Aki-** This idea came to me and kept building so I had to write it down. This was supposed to be a one shot, but the plot got so long (I am going to split it into a two or three part story haven't decided yet). I will get back to my other story, I promise.

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**The Letter**

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen," rang in a collective of somber voices throughout church building. Rory opened her eyes and observed the room all dressed in black.

"Please be seated," said the reverend from his pulpit and the crowd silently complied. The silence in the room was complete expect for the quiet sobs coming from the pew in the front of the church.

It was Liz, TJ on her right, holding her in attempt to comfort her, and Doula asleep in a baby carrier next to her. She was the only one crying aloud in the whole church. The chilling echoes, bouncing off of the walls and piercing each individual's being with worse torment then their own wails could have brought.

"We have gathered today to mourn the loss of one of our own though he only spent a short time here in Stars Hollow. More important is it to remember and honor the memory of the life of Jess Mariano, who was taken from us suddenly…"

Rory clenched her hands tightly in her lap wishing that her mom was sitting with her, even thought Rory had insisted she would be fine early. Instead Lorelai was a two pews in front with Luke. He had been extremely silent the last few days. Of what Rory could see, his head was bowed like he might be crying. Lorelai placed a gentle, comforting hand on his shoulder.

"In his two years spent living in this town Jess became infamous for pulling pranks and servicing in his uncle's diner without a smile, but despite that he became a part of this community…"

It had come to surprise to Rory when she had come into the church to find it filled with town locals that had never known Jess or even liked him! But here they where: Kirk, Lulu, Babette, Miss Patty, Andrew, Mrs. Kim, countless others, and most surprisingly, Taylor. Maybe they felt as if were their responsibility. An obligation to the town or the church or to the family dealing with the loss. Or maybe…maybe it was because they felt guilty because they never even gave him a chance.

"…His life could not be defined as easy…"

Across the church sat a middle-aged Italian looking man with a woman with short bleached hair and a preteen girl. The girl had tears running silently down her cheeks behind her thick glasses. The bleached blonde woman who stood between the man and the girl and both of their hands held tightly. Rory cocked her head to the side observing them. She had never seen them before.

Perhaps… a thought popped into Rory's mind. Could that be Jess' father? It could be, but she never met the man. Hell, Jess had not met him until he was eighteen. She wondered if they had gotten close while Jess went to see him. Obviously close enough for, what was his name that Luke mentioned one time, Jimmy to be invited to and come to the funeral. Jess never talked about it.

Wait, a voice in Rory's head sounded… Jess never had the opportunity. She thought about it and realized that she had only talked to Jess really four times since they had broken up. She felt a pang of guilt in her gut but did not know why.

Rory shook her head lightly side to side to clear it from wandering thoughts and turned her attention back to the minister. "We may never know what caused Jess' life to take such a drastic turn after he had finally become a successful author and partner in a small business."

A long sigh, one full of resignation and melancholy sounded from the pew behind her and she quickly glanced at the occupants even though she already knew who they were. Well, technically she did not know their names but she recognized them from her single visit to Philadelphia. They looked so… was guilty to weak a word. One so overused in such commonplace circumstances that it had now lost all real meaning.

There were two of them. One, a taller African American in his early twenties with a long slim figure and a defined face who seemed to be staring, eyes glazed over slightly from misery, at the front of the church. The other was a shorter, round-faced brunette who was keeping his head defiantly down. She was pretty sure he was the one who had sighed.

"We can only hope that the time Jess Mariano spent on this earth that he followed the same creed he wrote in his novel, _The Subsect_, 'Life is made up of a series of unexpected moments, from the commonplace traffic jam that makes you late for your doctor's appointment and to the spectacular time you run into that one person who changes your life in the most uninteresting place. When these moments come you can only do one thing and that is try to keep up and cross your fingers that everything will work out, even if you know it won't.'"

The reverend ended the service and everyone filed past the family, Liz, TJ, and Luke, who were standing at the front of the church. Rory stood back and observed as the townspeople gave their meaningless words of comfort like, 'I'm sorry for your loss' and 'I give my condolences,' with a few mixed in 'If you need anything just call. I can baby-sit any time.'

"Are you gonna' go up?" asked Lorelai, taking a place next to her daughter.

"No…I won't know what to say." Lorelai didn't prod any further.

Rory watched as Jimmy and company reached Liz. Their eyes connected in silence and they need not say anything because they understood something that no one else in the room did. Neither had been great parents but they both recognized something, they had lost their son. After a dragging moment of silence he gave his estranged ex-wife a hug which she returned.

Rory had a weird feeling. Jimmy was willing to face the woman he abandoned to deal with the suffering that came from Jess' death, yet she was afraid to address her ex-boyfriend's mother whom she had never talked to before. Maybe she could. Rory moved across the church to join the end of the line.

Jess' previous partners from Truncheon Books reached the front of the line. Rory was now close enough to hear the words shared between them.

"Mrs…," started the shorter of the two before realizing he didn't know her name. "Jess' mom," he amended. "We're sorry."

"Oh, it's okay. Horrible things happen," replied Liz in a not too convincing voice.

"No," corrected the taller of the two. "We're sorry we didn't see this coming when we should have."

"He was our friend," added the other, "We all lived together yet we didn't see it coming when we should of."

"No, don't blame yourselves, boys. Please don't," begged Liz, tears renewed. "It's not your fault."

"Omigod," Rory whispered to herself in realization. Everyone in this church blamed themselves for Jess' death. His Truncheon buddies thought they should have seen the problem coming and been able to save him. Liz blamed herself for being a bad parent and Jimmy blamed himself for leaving. The townspeople were ashamed that they never gave Jess a fighting chance or an ounce of respect. And Luke, Rory looked were he stood silently to the side of Liz, not looking anyone in the eye, he thought he didn't do enough.

Rory glanced back at her mother, hoping maybe to confide this to her, when she saw Lorelai looking downcast alone against the far wall, not her usual self at all. She felt guilty for she never knew him yet hated Jess anyway.

The boys from Truncheon were now coming down the aisle to the door, but the path lead them straight past Rory. The taller one nudged the other lightly with his shoulder, making him glance up and look at her.

"You're Rory Gilmore, right?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered much weaker and less-assured then she would have liked.

He glanced at his friend, "I get it now." That's all they said before the walked past her and left. Rory stood in line a moment longer before she became unexplainably dizzy and nauseous. She turned and ran out of the church, heels or no heels, without a word to anyone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2**

Rory sighed tiredly as sighed entered her boyfriend's apartment and threw her long black coat over the couch's arm.

"How was the funeral," asked Logan grimly where he sat on a stool at the kitchen counter.

Rory shrugged half-heartedly in return. "It was horrible."

"I'd expect so."

Rory just nodded sadly.

"How- how are you doing?" Logan asked sincerely.

"I'm— miserable," concluded Rory after a moment of consideration. "We hadn't ended on very good terms. And he was still so young…alcohol poisoning is such a horrible way to die."

Logan nodded but said nothing.

"I just wish I could have done something to save him, we all did…" She thought vaguely back to all the guilty people at the funeral.

"Umm… Rory," said Logan, avoiding her eyes, "I have something for you."

"What?" asked Rory, approaching him.

He pulled a rectangular piece of paper out of his jacket pocket. It was an envelope that had been ripped open roughly. He held it out to her.

She took it tentatively. "What's this?"

"A letter," he replied and Rory gave him annoyed look. "Just read it, please."

Rory gave her boyfriend a weird look before pulling out a folded piece of notebook paper that showed the signs of being battered around quite a bit. She unfolded it and immediately recognized the handwriting which was currently cramped into the margins of many books in her personal library.

"Rory," it started simply, "I don't know why I am writing this as I doubt I'll ever work up the nerve to actually send it, but if you are reading it, I obviously did. Even though I am now a published writer I somehow can't find the right words to explain what I am thinking right now. I wish so much I could tell you that I hate or that you just don't matter to me anymore, but I honestly can't.

"You were so wrong when you came to my open house last month. You played me. That's just cruel… The funny thing is I never thought I could associate you, Rory, the honorary princess of Stars Hollow, with the word cruel. You're not who you used to, Rory. You're not. When did you become this person that I can hardly recognize? It was sometime after I left. Was if my fault? Did I make you hurt so much that he completely transformed who you were to fit into a different world, one you don't belong in?

"Sorry, I didn't write this with the intention of ragging on you. I need to tell you something. When you came to the open house and after you kissed me then pulled away you said you loved your ass boyfriend despite everything he has done. I guess you never realized that I felt the same way.

"If you didn't catch that, I love you. I'm not talking sappy, soap opera love. I'm talking _Romeo and Juliet, Phantom of the Opera_, completely desperate, obsessive, consuming love, despite everything. I hate to admit it because it makes me feel like a helpless fool. I feel like Casio watching the woman I love slip away.

"I guess I understand if you have stopped reading already and have thrown this note away or that you are reading it with a look of disgust upon your face and swear never to talk to me again. I'd expect that. But maybe you're not and a teensy, tiny romantic part of you is reading this letter and maybe feel something in return. Probably not love, but something, whether it be pity or regret or even a bit adoration.

"I know you hated it how closed off I was when we were dating, so I'm telling you everything now. I just want you to know I mean this, all of this. I doubt you feel anything in return. It's stupid of me to write this. I know you have a boyfriend that you claim to love even though he cheated on you and have a seemingly perfect life, though I think different, but I just wanted you to know.

Jess Mariano

P.S. I fear you may not want to speak to me again after reading this, but can you please just tell me that you did and that it meant something."

"Rory?" said Logan tentatively after a long time of her being silent.

"Why?" she asked hoarsely, staring past him, looking on the verge of tease.

"Why what?"

Rory growled, hopped off her stool and started pacing around the living room angrily. "Why did you take this? Why did you read it? Why did you hide it from me? Why-," her voice cracked, "Why did you give it to me now."

Logan approached Rory, stilling her with a hand on each shoulder. "I had just gotten back from the hospital and I still remembered the fight we had before. I was scared. I didn't want to lose you, Ace. I know it was wrong, but…"

"But why now?" asked, her soft voice shaking.

"I always intended to give it to you sometime, that's why I never threw it away. I kept pushing it off, it was always a bad time with me going to London and barely getting to see you and then… after he died, you deserved to know how he felt."

"I deserved to know before he died!" she screamed, her anger burst forth, as she broke violently away from her boyfriend's hold.

Logan hung his head. "I'm sorry."

"I-," Rory paused, clenching her teeth to hold back threatening tears. "I just need to be alone for a little while," she stated, her frustration having dissipated. She turned and grabbed her coat from the couch and was putting it on as she opened the door.

"Wait," said a voice quietly behind him.

"What?" she asked, pausing halfway through the doorway, not trusting herself to turn and face Logan.

"I just need to know. If you had gotten that letter back then, would you have… picked him?"

Silence.

"I don't know," she said in barely a whisper, but she knew he heard her. "I don't know."

The door slammed behind her and as she entered the elevator at the end of the hall the first of tears rolled down her cheek from her welling eyes. She really didn't know.

**Not the end, there is another part of this story. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3**

Rory couldn't decide who she was angrier at, Logan or Jess. Logan for reading her mail, hiding it from her, and returning it at a rather inappropriate time or Jess for writing her a love note out of the blue. It had to be Logan, he had no right. Seriously, did he not think she was capable enough to decide for herself what she was going to do with the letter? Did he not think their relationship was stronger then a silly love letter could destroy?…

But it wasn't a silly love letter, it was a beautiful love letter… and now Rory's petty debate in her head— which she conjured up to not think about anything else— had dissipated and she was down to the main issue, the letter. So much was said on just the front and back of a single sheet of notebook paper. Even after his death, Jess had made her think about her life and love more then she had in a long while.

Had she really changed as much as he had said in the letter? Rory thought back to her last visit with Jess as she drove in a mindless direction on the freeway. In hindsight, she couldn't believe she had really gone their just with the intention of cheating on Logan to get back at him. That was wrong in so many ways. First, she shouldn't be in a relationship where she was vindictive enough to have the need to cheat on her boyfriend to retaliate. Second, she shouldn't have strung someone along to meet her ends, especially Jess, who at one time she really cared about. Thirdly, she was disgusted at herself for what she had almost done.

That wasn't the part that got Rory though. Jess had confessed his love to her and not for the first time. Even after she was a total jerk to him he was still in love with her. She knew from experience he wasn't the type of person who laid his feelings on the line like that. When he said it, it meant something.

Rory glanced over at the letter which lay opened on the passenger seat of her car. She had more than once needed to pull over to reread it. She knew the next part by heart because it taunted her so, "P.S. I fear you may not want to speak to me again after reading this, but can you please just tell me that you did and that it meant something."

This was were the giddy feeling of being told she was loved, even though she wasn't sure she returned such feelings, melted away to leave guilt and glumness. She contemplated the post script over and over again in her head. She tried to place herself into the mind of Rory of almost a year ago. Would she told Jess that she that she read the letter? How would she have felt then, with Jess still being alive? Would it have meant something?

Her cell phone buzzed in her purse for the umpteenth time but she ignored it. It was either Paris, her mom, or Logan, none of which she was up to talking to at the moment especially the latter. She glanced at the road sign and her gut twisted, she can't believe she had driven this far and to here of all places.

With a mixed sensation of giddiness and shame, she pulled onto the exit ramp that would lead her into the heart of Philly as if she had meant to come here all along. On second thought, deep down, maybe she did.

It seemed only moments later she pulled into a parking space right outside of Truncheon Books. And the next she was inside, standing uncomfortable and unsure right in front of the closed door.

Just then one of Jess' friends from that she saw at the funeral came down stairs from what she loosely recollected Jess mentioning was his and a few co-workers' apartment. He went directly to behind the desk by the opposite walled and was rummaging frustrated through some papers. Rory took a tentative step forward and cleared her throat.

The boy glanced up, eyes widening in surprise.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, although no harshly but more curiously.

Rory shrugged. "I don't even know."

"Well," he said, walking around the desk and approaching her, "I don't think we were ever properly introduced. I'm Matt." He extended a hand.

Rory accepted it. "And I'm Rory Gilmore, but you already know that."

"Yeah," he argues bashfully, but said nothing more.

"I— guess I want to ask you why you said what you said at the funeral. When you said you 'got it now'?"

"Oh, well Chris had tried to explain it to me, he saw you the day of the open house and how Jess looked at you like—" Matt didn't finish.

Rory nodded in understanding, encouraging him to go on.

"When I saw you I got why Jess was crazy over you."

"Oh," said Rory, crossing her arms over her chest, unsure of herself. She hadn't known what she expected as an answer.

"And it's more then just the way you look," Matt proceeded to explain, catching Rory off guard. "You just like he described, 'an innocent confidence.'"

"Described me when?" asked Rory, eager to know for some reason she couldn't quite pinpoint.

"In his book—"

"That's not in _The Subsect,_" Rory cut him off defensively. She read his book many a time.

"No, in his new one."

"He wrote another book?" said Rory in amazement, eyes lighting up.

Matt nodded. "Yeah. Me and Chris had been on him for a while to write more, but he said he didn't have an inspiration or some dumb writer excuse like that. He started after the open house, a month or two later that he started drinking…" Matt lowered his head to evade Rory's eyes. Guilt laced his voice as he spoke next, "We thought it was normal. We had all drunk before and most of the great writers drank, it didn't seem like a big deal. Then we found him…"

Rory was glad Matt didn't finish. She didn't want a detailed account of how Jess was found unconscious in the apartment.

She had half a mind to place a comforting hand on Matt's shoulder even though she barely knew him. However, her mind was running in a different direction.

She took another step forward. "Please, tell me what it was about."

Matt knew she was referring to the book. He looked up at her. "From what I can figure it's a semi-fictional account about him falling into utter despair after he losses the most important person in his life." His stare was enough to tell Rory who that person was.

She pursed her lips together and nodded, trying to hold back threatening tears. "Okay," she answered, her voice cracking as she stepped back.

"We're still goin' to publish it. I think he would have liked it that way." Rory nodded again, but the large display room started to feel very claustrophobic. She wanted to run. Somewhere, anywhere but here. Her eyes strung, but no tears fell. She wanted to say something but her voice was caught in her chest.

She briefly remembered a muttered goodbye and long car drive, but her mind was somewhere else. She was unsuccessfully trying to convince herself that Jess didn't start writing his second book because of her betrayal at Truncheon's open house and that it was just a coincidence that Jess began the bad drinking habit that eventually cost his life was not because she never replied to his letter. She wanted to believe that it didn't all connect so she didn't have to feel the overwhelming guilt that everyone else had felt early this very day at the funeral, but she couldn't.

She wanted to be mad at Jess for putting himself in a situation that depended solely on her actions. She wanted to be mad at Logan for the many things he did that turn helped her hurt Jess. She wanted to be mad at Matt for the way he looked at her that made her want to die from shame. She wanted to be mad at the town full of people that told her that Jess was never good enough for her in the first place. She wanted to, but the only person she was mad at was herself.

Mad because she knew, even if she didn't want to admit it, that if she had gotten that letter a year ago, she wouldn't have left Logan, she wouldn't have ran into Jess' open arms, and that she wouldn't have replied to the letter or if she had she would have broken his heart. She was also mad because she was so blind before… and that she never gotten the chance to…

The funeral had been mid-morning, she had left Logan's at noon, reached Philly several hours later, and now was back in Stars Hollow where she began. It was evening now, the cloudy sky blocked most of the moonlight. Here she was, with a million unanswered messages on her cell phone from a million people asking her where she is.

She didn't care.

Nothing

Nothing matter right now but him…

She collapsed to her knees on the freshly dug dirt, not caring she was still in her nice clothes or that water was soaking threw to her knees. She stared at the head stone, but didn't read it or even see it. It all felt so fake, so artificial, yet so painfully real.

Barely audible sobbing began wracking her body. She curled in the fetal position, her hands grabbing painfully at her hair. Tears rolled down her cheeks and neck to dampen or collar, some ran to the tip of her nose before dripping to the already moist ground. A cold breeze blew over her, but she didn't care. She didn't even feel it.

And for the first time since she heard the horrible news Rory cried as she whispered the same four words over and over again in unexpected insight and dreadful despair.

"I love you too," she sobbed. "I love you too."

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Aki- Wow, this ended more depressing then I thought it would. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. 


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